Uganda halves poverty, income inequality widens

By Innocent Anguyo

Uganda has scored highly in Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number one which calls for eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, an expert in the ministry of finance has revealed.

Dr. Margaret Mary Kakande Head of Budget Monitoring and Accountability Unit in the Ministry of Finance said Uganda achieved the target to halve the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day, well ahead of 2015.

Kakande presented a report at Makerere University in a public dialogue on MDGs and Post 2015 Agenda organized by Isis-Women’s International Cross Cultural Exchange and the School of Women and Gender Studies.

“The national poverty head count declined from 56.4% in 1992/93 to 24.5% in 2009/10. This has been a result of more secure and productive forms of employment and has resulted in a steady reduction in hunger and under nutrition,” said Kakande.

She further revealed that women have experienced some income poverty reduction but to a less extent compared to the men, saying in 2002/03, women constituted 30% of the wage employment before the figure slightly dropped to 29% in 2005/06.

The statistician was however quick to reveal that there is still a wide income inequality between men and women with the latter earning lesser. In 2009/10, Kakande said on average men in urban earned sh181, 000 (rural sh80, 000) while their female counterparts earned sh130, 250 (rural sh50, 000).

“With widening inequality, the women are concentrated in the lower quintiles of the poor. This means continued marginalization and limited decision making process,” argued Kakande.

Kakande said the pointers of expenditure used by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) to compute the poverty levels may not necessarily represent the reality on ground since some people spend handouts and earnings from sales of assets which leaves them in a dire income situation.

In the same report, the expert also notes that there is a progress on the other goals especially reduction in child mortality, promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women, and universal primary education.

For example, she revealed that significant progress had been made in improving nutrition, saying the share of underweight children below the age of five years declined from 25.5% in 1995 to 13.8% in 20011.

“Reduced malnutrition overall is good for the women that are the care givers within the households. With better nourished children, the incidence of diseases is checked,” stated Kakande.

She said the MDG4 target to reduce under-five deaths by two third is within Uganda’s reach, but will require renewed efforts to scale up targeted, cost-effective interventions such as improved vaccination coverage, micronutrient supplementation, the promotion of insecticide treated nets and improved hygiene and breast feeding habits.

Uganda, Kakande also said had made progress on five of the six indicators for maternal health, though she was quick to note that the MDG target to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters is unlikely to be met.

“The stagnation in maternal mortality is in part due to the fact the use and quality of care along the continuum of care-from pregnancy care, to child birth, and to the post child birth period needs more attention,” she stated.

By 2011, she revealed that Uganda’s maternal mortality ratio stood at 438 (58.2%), a far cry from the 2015 target of 131 (100%). She attributed the slight improvement between 2006 and 2011 to the large increase in the proportion of births assisted by trained health workers from 42% to 58%.

Under MDG6, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, Kakande said with exception of HIV prevalence, there is progress in other indicators.

In response to MDG3, Kakande said Uganda has made progress in promoting gender equality and empowering women most notably in achieving gender parity in primary education.

She however, noted that despite the affirmative action in public universities, there are only three females students out of every ten enrolled.

Miria Matembe, the chief guest at the dialogue said Uganda is retrogressing in empowerment of women because women in influential positions especially in “parliament and cabinet are only serving power and their own interests rather standing up for needs of the peers.”